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The incident happened last Sunday. From AP-
DALLAS — The NHL suspended Dallas Stars forward Steve Ott for three games without pay Wednesday for his hit to the head of Colorado Avalanche defenseman Jordan Leopold.
No penalty was assessed on the play in the first period of Sunday’s game, but the suspension came after a review of the play.
Ott appeared to leave his feet to make the hit on Leopold against the boards, and Leopold left the game with a head injury. Leopold missed the Avalanche’s Tuesday game against Atlanta.
Ott will miss Thursday’s game at Detroit, as well as games against Vancouver and Anaheim before being eligible to return March 22 against Los Angeles.
Ott forfeits his salary from those three games, amounting to $12,834. The money will go to the NHL players’ emergency assistance fund. It is Ott’s first career suspension.
The NHL some how thinks this is just. Ott puts a player out of the lineup for three games, and he gets suspended for three games. This kind of brutality will continue till the NHL throws the book at players like Ott, Chris Simon, Todd Bertuzzi and others.
The incident happened almost one year ago. From AP-
ORLANDO, Fla. — Pro golfer Arjun Atwal won’t be charged in a street race incident in which the other driver crashed and died.
Prosecutors decided last week not to charge Atwal in the March 2007 death of John N. Park, saying the cars driven by the two men never made contact. Witnesses said Atwal and Park were driving nearly 100 mph in a 45-mph zone when Park failed to negotiate a turn, sending his car airborne into a tree.
“The two racing vehicles did not come into contact with each other,” assistant state attorney Robert Eagan wrote Thursday. “There is no evidence that either vehicle was driven in a manner causing the other to brake or evade the other.”
Florida Highway Patrol investigators had recommended Atwal be charged with vehicular homicide.
Atwal could have been charged with participating in a street race. But the state attorney’s office didn’t receive a citation from the highway patrol, prosecutor spokeswoman Danielle Tavernier said Tuesday.
Atwal and Park, who did not know each other, were driving on a suburban road connecting the Walt Disney World resorts and upscale communities west of Orlando.
Atwal has lost his PGA Tour card. He did win last weekend’s Malaysian Open.
I hope Atwal learned a lesson from all of this. Ironically I wrote a web fiction story centered around a fatal street race almost a year ago. None of my racers were pro golfers however.
This will be his second stint in St. Louis. From Reuters-
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The St Louis Rams bolstered their offense on Monday by signing former player Trent Green as back-up to starting quarterback Marc Bulger.
Green, 37, was with the Miami Dolphins last season but his campaign ended prematurely due to a head injury.
*****
The Rams signed Green to a three-year contract but financial terms were undisclosed.
Green is a 10-year NFL veteran who has spent time with four teams, including the Rams in 1999 and 2000.
He suffered a season-ending knee injury during the 1999 preseason and spent the 2000 campaign as a back-up to starter Kurt Warner.
I wish Green would retire. His play wasn’t very good last year, partly because he looked afraid. Worried about another concussion, like had happened in 2006. We all know what happened in 2007 to end Green’s year.
Green is past his prime, to continue playing is taking a stupid risk so far as his health goes.
The Heat season is dismal, the injured guard might as well take a breather.
Wade is scheduled to undergo a follow-up procedure on his surgically repaired left knee and will miss the rest of the season.
Wade will have a shock stimulation treatment later this week with a specialized machine referred to as an OssaTron, coach Pat Riley said after Monday morning’s shootaround at AmericanAirlines Arena. Heat team physician Harlan Selesnick will oversee the procedure, which is designed to increase blood flow in the knee and limit tendinitis.
After the procedure, Wade must refrain from weight-bearing exercises for 30 days. But Riley said Wade would be allowed to swim, ride a stationary bike and do other conditioning activities.
Wade’s status for the stretch run of the season had been in question since he quietly complained of significant soreness in the knee two weeks ago.
The only questions remaining for the Heat this season- How many games will they win for the year?(I’m betting 17 or under) and will they get the #1 pick in the next NBA draft?
Do you need me to tell you the result?
MIAMI – The Miami Heat had half a team, and even less of a chance against the Golden State Warriors. Stephen Jackson scored 22 points, Al Harrington added 17, Baron Davis had 15 points and 10 assists and the Warriors eased past the severely shorthanded Heat 134-99 on Friday night, handing Miami its biggest loss of a dismal season.
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Miami only had seven available players and was without Dwyane Wade, sidelined by left knee soreness. The Heat played the final 4 1/2 minutes with one available substitute, after Udonis Haslem tweaked a gimpy ankle and retreated to the locker room.
Chris Quinn and Marcus Banks each scored 20 points for the Heat (11-48), who lost for the 30th time in their last 33 games and will take the NBA’s worst record into a doubleheader of sorts at Atlanta on Saturday.
Monta Ellis scored 16 points and Mickael Pietrus finished with 15 for Golden State (38-23), which eclipsed the 100-point mark for the 25th straight game and has won five of its last six. The Warriors also scored more points than anyone managed against Miami all season, topping Chicago’s 126 on Jan. 16.
Shawn Marion had 17 points and 10 rebounds, and Haslem finished with 17 points for Miami.
“Knowing they only had seven players, we just wanted to push the tempo,” Davis said.
The Warriors did that with ease.
Jackson made three 3-pointers in a span of 2:09 late in the opening quarter, setting the tone for Golden State’s night. He and Harrington each connected on four 3-pointers in the first half alone, and the Warriors steadily built what was a 63-51 lead at intermission.
If there was any doubt, the Warriors erased it in the third quarter.
Golden State outscored Miami 37-22 in that period, stretching the lead to 100-73 entering the final 12 minutes, during which the Warriors essentially stayed on cruise control. Ellis had 14 points in the third, when the Warriors shot 73 percent (16-22) from the floor.
Wade could only watch helplessly from Miami’s bench.
Since Wade arrived, the Heat are 33-41 without him, 1-9 this season, but he was hardly the only absence of note for Miami in this one.
NBA rules mandate that a team have eight players in uniform for a game, and the Heat met that requirement; Wade and Earl Barron (sore right knee) were the eighth and ninth men in uniform, although neither played. The rest of the 15-man roster was unavailable because of an array of roster moves, suspensions and injuries.
“Taking all volunteers tonight,” Heat coach Pat Riley said.
Including for the head coaching position. It was recently announced that Riley would miss a few upcoming games in order to scout for the next NBA draft. I predict Riley won’t be back as Heat coach in 08-09.
How will the pathetic Heat manage to lose next? Stay tuned.
It is all about whether he is a defensive end or a linebacker.
OWINGS MILLS, Md. – Terrell Suggs filed a grievance against the Baltimore Ravens over whether he should be classified as a defensive end or a linebacker, a dispute in which $814,000 is at stake.
Suggs wants to receive the $8.879 million one-year salary for the defensive end franchise tag designation. The Ravens assigned Suggs the $8.065 million franchise tag for linebackers, the average of the top five linebackers’ salaries in the NFL.
An arbitration hearing before an NFL special master to resolve the issue hasn’t been scheduled.
Suggs contends he played more than 50 percent of his snaps at defensive end last year. When the Ravens used the tag on Suggs on Feb. 19, general manager Ozzie Newsome countered that argument.
“Well, in our defense, Terrell has always been an outside linebacker, was drafted as an outside linebacker and that’s why he was designated as such,” Newsome said.
Newsome added that Suggs was twice voted to the Pro Bowl as a linebacker and plays linebacker in the team’s base defense.
Based on Suggs playing defensive end a majority of downs last season, a good argument can be made that is his position now. What Suggs position was when he was drafted doesn’t seem relevant.
Shadows of Rosie Ruiz. From the Sarasota Herald-Tribune-
SARASOTA — Cristina Noble, the first woman to cross the finish line at Sunday’s Sarasota Marathon, has been disqualified.
Race officials say she missed electronic checkpoints at mile 17 and 18 of the Sarasota race. Course monitors confirmed that she did not run a mile of the marathon on Ken Thompson Parkway.
The official women’s winner of the 2008 ABC-7 Sarasota Marathon is now Madeleine Zolfo, 43, of Treasure Island. She learned the news Monday night.
Madeleine Zolfo finished three minutes behind Sunday’s winner, but was named the winner Monday.
“It’s kind of a bittersweet phone call to get,” Zolfo said. “You know, to win because someone else got disqualified.”
Zolfo said the course was clearly marked on City Island, but she doesn’t know what happened with Noble.
Race officials didn’t elaborate. Noble is supposed to be a gifted runner with a similar time in last year’s Detroit marathon. Without her side of the story we can only guess what happened in Sarasota.
It was only his second ever NHL start.
CHICAGO – Rookie Corey Crawford stopped 19 shots to earn his first NHL win and shutout in his first start this season, and the Chicago Blackhawks defeated the Anaheim Ducks 3-0 on Wednesday night.
Dustin Byfuglien and Cam Barker each had power-play goals and an assist, and Patrick Sharp also scored for the Blackhawks, who won their third straight and ended Anaheim’s six-game winning streak.
The Ducks are 11-2 in their last 13.
Crawford made just his second career start in fifth NHL appearance. He had been recalled from Rockford of the AHL on Feb. 22 after Nikolai Khabibulin, Chicago’s No. 1 goalie, was sidelined with back spasms.
Despite their recent hot streak, Chicago is on the outside looking in so far as the NHL playoffs are concerned.
Say it ain’t so.
The Ivy League and Harvard will review whether recruiting violations were made by the Crimson men’s basketball program.
A story in The New York Times on Sunday chronicled, among other issues, recruiting efforts by a man who is now an assistant coach at Harvard, and how those efforts might have been in violation of NCAA rules.
“We’re going to do what needs to be done, and it’s going to be done in a timely way,” Jeff Orleans, the Ivy League executive director, told The Times for Wednesday’s editions.
Kenny Blakeney, the top assistant on coach Tommy Amaker’s staff, reportedly visited two recruits — Max Kenyi, a 6-foot-3 shooting guard from Washington, D.C., and Keith Wright, a 6-7 forward from Norfolk, Va., when in-person contact is not allowed.
Kenyi told The Times that Blakeney had played basketball with him in June or July 2007. Wright told The Times that Blakeney had visited him at one of his summer basketball team practices in Norfolk, saying, “He actually got to play with us, because he wasn’t actually on Harvard’s staff … He didn’t sign anything yet, so he got to play with us, and we talked and exchanged numbers.”
Harvard announced Blakeney’s hiring on July 2, 2007. In addition, visits such as Blakeney’s may still be a violation, according to NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson, because the rules state, “Should a coach recruit on behalf of a school but not be employed there, he or she is then considered a booster and that recruiting activity is not allowed.”
Should a school be punished for the actions of a coach before he worked for the school? Some NCAA rules seem silly to me.
A Ivy league school being investigated is not unheard of. A google search found this article on Brown. Learn something new every day.
Sapp was a great player no doubt about it but like so many others may have stayed a season or two too long. He’ll be well remembered by Florida football fans. Good luck in retirement Warren.
OAKLAND, Calif. — Warren Sapp’s 13-year NFL career officially ended when his retirement was posted on the Oakland Raiders’ Web site.
Sapp said immediately after last season that he was through playing, but did not file the paperwork. The posting on the team’s site was the first official word that the star defensive tackle was done.
In January, the 35-year-old Sapp posted a two-word message on his Web site: “I’M DONE!” He had told teammates and coaches his plans after the season finale against San Diego.
Considered the quintessential “three technique” defensive tackle — lining up between the offensive guard and tackle — Sapp made seven Pro Bowls, won the 1999 Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year award, and led Tampa Bay’s dominant defense that won the Super Bowl after the 2002 season.
Sapp spent nine seasons in Tampa before joining the Raiders in 2004 as a free agent. He mostly struggled with the Raiders, except for a strong 2006 in which he had 10 sacks, and had become more of a situational player in his final season.
In 2007, he had only two sacks and the Raiders’ defense struggled against the run, allowing a league-worst 4.8 yards per carry.
Sapp finished his career with 96½ sacks, 28th overall since the NFL began keeping track of the statistic in 1982, but extra impressive because he played tackle.
His running “feud” with Packers quarterback Brett Favre — who coincidentally announced his retirement Tuesday as well — brought some levity to a sometimes brutal game. Sapp was known as a trash talker, and Favre often went directly back at him with a smile when both the Bucs and Packers were in the same division and played twice a season.
Sapp starred in college at Miami, where he arrived as a tight end and left as the best defensive player in the country. He slipped to No. 12 in the 1995 draft after testing positive for marijuana at the scouting combine.
That was just one controversy in Sapp’s career. In 2002, he nearly ended the career of Packers offensive tackle Chad Clifton with a vicious hit while trying to throw a block after an interception. Then-Packers coach Mike Sherman confronted Sapp on the field after the game, calling it a dirty play.
Sapp was fined $50,000 for bumping an official in 2003 and was fined $75,000 after being ejected following three personal fouls in the next-to-last game of his career against Jacksonville.
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